A production method and production device have been disclosed in the relevant state of the art under the trade name Bottelpack®. The production method permits cost-effective automated molding (blowing and vacuum molding), filling, and sealing of containers. If the containers are to be filled with high-sensitivity products, such as pharmaceuticals for which international standards for aseptic packaging are to be met, the mold, when moved to the filling position, is closed in an area called the sterile filling space in which sterile air is blown over the uncovered fill opening of containers and provides effective protection from penetration by germs. Movable head jaws of the mold are closed until after completion of the filling process to effect the desired sealing of the end of the container by a combined vacuum and welding process. Such sterile filling areas and their devices for sterile filling of containers are of the state of the art and are disclosed, for example, in DE 196 48 087 A1 or U.S. Pat. No. 6,098,686.
While the fill opening is effectively protected by the sterile filling space in the filling position, the fill opening when open is not fully protected during movement of the mold from the extrusion position, in which the tube which has been formed is separated below the extruder nozzle and the fill opening is formed, until the filling position has been reached, even if the process is conducted in a clean space. In other words, the tube having the fill opening forms an open receptacle on the upper side during movement of the mold into the filling position. To increase the certainty of sterility, a process and a device are disclosed in DE 100 63 282 A1 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 7,357,893) as state of the art, which take care to make certain that the fill opening of the tube is covered by a sterile barrier during movement of the mold into the filling position. The known sterile barrier is in the form of a heatable plate which may be moved together with the element separating the tube. The plate is heated to a germ-killing temperature, preferably one above 120° C. In the process, the sterile barrier is in such a position and provided with such dimensions that it is situated, when the separating element is in the operating position, above the path of movement leading to the filling position of the mold and covering the fill opening, until it has reached the sterile filling space.
Not only does this known solution prevent the danger of falling of alien bodies into the uncovered fill opening after separation of the tube before the mold has reached the sterile filling space, but the sterile barrier also prevents access of germs to the fill opening during this part of the process, so that the desired freedom from germs has been achieved to a very great extent.